Messages - Jumboshrimps

Exam prep starts from day one. If you're in law school, it's exam time. Enter the forced curve. Enter understanding of simple statistics. If that doesn't stress you out, you are not working hard enough.

The statement is "I had nothing to do with the crime." It is being offered solely to impeach the credibility of the witness. Therefore, it is patently not offered for the truth of its contents and thus not hearsay at all.

Then, the other attorney pipes up and says, "Your honor, counsel's stated purpose of introducing this statement solely for impeachment purposes is a mere pretext to get it in for the truth of its contents, namely, that the witness had nothing to do with the crime.It is plain hearsay and does not fall under an exception."

Then, the first attorney says, "Your honor, I am merely trying to impeach the credibility of this witness. Moreover, this statement could not be offered for its truth in ANY circumstance because it is in fact false. A false statement is never offered for its truth, and therefore never hearsay."

Judge: I will allow the statement. It is either not hearsay or it falls under the impeachment "exception."

Because you are not offering the statement for its truth, it is really not hearsay at all. This is really just another formulation of the impeachment exception, but it is technically more correct to call it "non-hearsay."

Yes, you need no special legal theory. These are your actual damages. However, you need to establish the value of your time. If you're not a lawyer or some other professional who necessarily spent business time on this matter, your time is worth nothing at all.

Your method is good for determining whether actual, "but-for" causation is present. Proximate cause is subjective, and the best that can be said about it is that it encompasses some combination of foreseeability and "non-attenuatedness." You couldn't design a formula to determine proximate cause any more than you could design one to determine whether someone likes you or not.

Sure, they put out calls for submissions all the time. Secondary journals, especially on very specific topics, sometimes are really scrounging for papers, and will consider a lot of student comments.

This is all true. However, a big obstacle is the length issue. Comments/ notes are typically too short to be considered articles and too long to be published as case notes. Be willing to expand/ adjust your paper.

It's not simple. It's nonsensical. Also, I'm not sure if there are many Canadians who visit this board. And I KNOW you don't want an American law student to take a shot at a question about Canadian law. Trust me on that.